We're very pleased to let you know that we've not only passed $25,000 but almost made it to $26K in this year's Challenge. And (hopefully) there's more to come.

The reason the Challenge is so important to our Chamber is that this is basically unrestricted money,. When you give to the Challenge, you're essentially saying "Here's something for your efforts and you don't need to give me anything in return."

In other words, much as we appreciate your support of Chamber Day and Chamber Evening, the reality is that there's a cost to the event associated with each of those. For Chamber Day, we're paying for the t-shirts that you get (it's a small number, but it adds up) and for Chamber Evening we have to pay for the dinners (which is a much larger number - and we want to point out again that we get the facility for free so our only costs are associated with the actual feeding of everyone).

But there are no costs associated with the Challenge. 100% of what you give goes into the Chamber fund and will help to run and maintain the Chamber. And that's why we really value these dollars because they are the ones that are put to the most effective use. (Not that we don't appreciate the other support as well.) So here's who's joined us lately.

On the regular Challenge side, we have three large donations in the form of Gold Sponsors. We start with the guys and gals of Hollywoodivers, not only longtime supporters of the Challenge but they're also got a table at Chamber Evening and are sponsoring the Sand Dollar as their boat this year. Next up is Scuba.com, once again showing that just because you're an Internet entity, it doesn't mean you canít be involved in your local diving community. And thirdly we have Robert Wagner, not the actor but the Reef Seekers and Barnacle Busters member who has long understood the value of our Chamber and has for many years been a faithful supporter. And on the Mark Tulin Memorial side (a subset of the overall Challenge), we have a number of smaller donations.

So we're rolling along pretty good but we've got a long way to go. And don't ever lose sight of the fact that our Chamber benefits ALL of us (while at the same time being something we hope you never need) and that when we as a diving community come together and pitch in, great things can happen.

So who's next??? Who will push us past $26,000???

CHAMBER CHALLENGE 2011 - $25,893 total (Updated 4/4 @ 2PM - last updated 3/28) New donors are in bold type and marked with an asteriskDonations made in memory of Mark Tulin have (MT) after the donor's name(Of the Challenge total, $16,298 of that amount so far has been donated in Mark's memory)